Table of contents for #51 in HackSpace

LIGHT PAINTING Holy smokes! The images from the Raspberry Pi light painting project, Pilightpaint, last issue are mind-blowing! Give us more! James Glasgow Ben says: That was short and sweet! The Pilightpaint project is indeed mind-blowing. Light painting is awesome anyhow, but when you factor in how well Didier Briand executed his project, it gets even more incredible. The amazing and humbling thing about it is that the components he used are things that most of us will have lying about (or at least within a click of buying cheaply): some DotStar LEDs, a small screen, and a Raspberry Pi. It’s like a Neil Young guitar solo: there’s so little to it, but it’s magnificent in its grandeur. Of course, this means that the only thing that’s stopped us from doing…

OPEN-SOURCE ROBOTIC LEG opensourceleg.com All over the world, tens of millions of leg amputees have a reduced quality of life due to persistent mobility limitations. So the potential of an open-source project like this one, from the Neurobionics Lab at the University of Michigan, is vast. Its purpose is to unify the research of prosthetic leg controls. This is achieved with the use of a single, ubiquitous robotic leg system so that the results of research teams can be easily compared. Through the project’s website, researchers have access to downloadable hardware and software files so that they can enter the research field without having to design a leg themselves. Featuring a robotic knee and ankle system, the open-source leg can be easily manufactured, assembled, and controlled – using a Raspberry…

THE A11Y PROJECT a11yproject.com A11Y stands for ‘accessibility’ (11 characters between A and Y), and this project is a community-driven effort to make digital accessibility easier. While vital for so many disabled people, accessibility is something that’s often overlooked in traditional digital design and development education. The A11Y Project strives to be a living example of how to create beautiful, accessible, and inclusive digital experiences. So, if you want to ensure your website or app will work with assistive technology and therefore be accessible to all, The A11Y Project site is the place to come. Along with a blog and accessibility checklist, it features a comprehensive resources section. SCREEN READERS hsmag.cc/ScreenReaders A screen reader enables blind or visually impaired people to use a computer or smartphone and access digital content.…

Some months our workshop time is about making things, and some months it’s about learning new things and honing our skills. This month it’s the latter. I’ve been using Raspberry Pi Pico with MicroPython since before its public release – there’s still plenty to learn. I recently came across a blog about using direct memory access (DMA) with the analogue inputs on Pico (hsmag.cc/PicoDMA). This came as something of a surprise because I’ve been waiting for DMA support on Pico Micropython and haven’t heard any news on it. DMA is potentially an important feature because it lets you run PIO state machines without having to constantly funnel data in. It is essentially an automatic-copy function. You just need to tell it the block of data that you want transferring and…

Ben Everard @ben_everard P Ben’s house is slowly being taken over by 3D printers. He plans to solve this by printing an extension, once he gets enough printers. PCBs are made of layers of material. The middle bit (in standard two layer PCBs) is a type of fibreglass called FR-4. This is translucent and will let some light through. It’s sandwiched between layers of copper and two different types of paint (solder mask and silkscreen). These are less translucent. With a bit of clever design, you can utilise these material properties to create different effects as you shine light through a PCB. How well does it work? We decided to test it out with a simple experiment, putting different mounting options together with different PCB thicknesses to see what effect we…

HACKADAY hackaday.io The BalCCon 2016 Badge is one of my favourite badges for one simple reason; it has some practical uses that I need! The badge was made for the Balkan Computer Congress hacker conference organised by LUGoNS, a Linux Users Group of Novi Sad and Wau Holland Foundation from Hamburg and Berlin. The badge has a few functions. First, it has twelve LEDs in various colours and one RGB LED. It displays predefined patterns of light and, when two badges ‘see’ each other, they can synchronise to the same pattern. I’ve seen a few badges that act similarly, and they are always fun to use. The badge also features a built-in universal remote control for turning off TVs. Handy, but not the reason I need one. The last feature…

New electric drives for old Vespa scooters From £3495 hsmag.cc/evespaDelivery: August 2022 Internal combustion engines are a technology of the past. Much like steam engines, they had their time in the limelight. They represent some of the very best engineering of the 20th century, but the 21st century belongs to drive systems that can run on clean power. What does that mean for classic cars and motorbikes? Should we keep them running, consign them to museums, or send them to the recycling plant? While there’s certainly a place for unmodified classic cars to help the young folk understand why older people go ‘brum brum’ when playing with their toy cars, it’s possible to keep the aesthetics and feel of a classic going without the constant drip-feed of squished ancient plankton.…

EYEDRIVEOMATIC eyedrivomatic.org Whether caused by spinal injury or diseases such as ALS, quadriplegia makes it almost impossible for people to control their wheelchairs due to the inability to produce controlled movement in any of their limbs or head. Eyedrivomatic solves the problem by using an eyegaze system to relay controls to a motorised wheelchair’s joystick, so the user can make eye movements to control the chair. As someone living with advanced ALS, Eyedrivomatic inventor Patrick Joyce understood the mobility issues facing people in his position. Like many others, he didn’t actually own either the wheelchair or the eyegaze system that he used. So he needed a solution that would interface the eyegaze system and physically move his chair’s joystick without requiring any modifications. Eyedrivomatic is a two-part system: a Windows…

Rob Miles @robmiles Rob Miles has been playing with hardware and software since almost before there was hardware and software. You can find out more about his so-called life at robmiles.com. We’re going to make a talking ‘Pomodoro’ timer that you can use to time a task. Because, as reality TV shows demonstrate, nothing motivates people like having someone shout ‘Five minutes remaining!’ towards the end of a tricky task. The Pico Talking Pomodoro timer can announce the time left at fixed time intervals (five or ten minutes) or random intervals for that proper TV show feel. It can count elapsed time or time remaining and has an option for ‘silent running’ with no display or sound output until the time expires. It is powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico…

MAKEITHACKIN $50.00 tindie.com HACKADAY hackaday.io When most people think of conference badges, they think of those plain laminated tags, and nothing special. But if you are asking someone in the DIY electronics community, they will most likely think of DEF CON, and all the different DEF CON badges. It must be one of the largest conferences, and you can always find lots of custom badges. The MakeItHackin DEF CON 29 Electronic Badge is interesting and easily programmable. It features an SAO port, ATtiny85, OLED, NeoPixels, and a light sensor. In addition to the standard electronics, it also has both an 8.2MHz and 58kHz security tag. You can easily program the ATtiny to display custom graphics, and interact with the light sensor and NeoPixels. It’s not too advanced, and it’s simple…

HACKADAY hackaday.io OSH Park, along with Screaming Circuits, produced this beautifully purple and functional electronic conference badge for the 2018 Open Hardware Summit. The board, designed by Alex Camilo, is based on a concept from ESP trINKet by Mike Rankin, and features an ESP32 microcontroller with built-in WiFi, and ePaper display. An interesting feature is its ability to update the display via your phone, tablet, or laptop. That makes it a lot easier and fun. I would assume it also promotes more changes and interactivity throughout the conference. It took some digging around, but I did eventually find a link to the project page: hsmag.cc/OSHWABadge, and it does, in fact, have links to GitHub, so you can still make your own, or, at the very least, learn more about the…

TROIKA £22.80 pimoroni.com @concreted0g Often as makers and hardware hackers, we need to scribble the odd note, sketch an idea, or get organised with a ‘to-do’ list for our making time. While any old pen or pencil might suffice for this, we decided to take a look at an increasingly popular range of pens that are designed to be used in projects and builds. Troika items are widely sold online from many stationery suppliers, but increasingly, maker suppliers are starting to stock them. We bought ours from Pimoroni, where it’s far too easy to slip one of these pens into your shopping basket while you’re shopping for other electronics supplies. The two models we’re looking at are from the Construction range: the larger Construction multi-tool and the Construction Liliput. There…

hsmag.cc/WeatherBot When we spoke to Lewis Aburrow, creator of the DIY Machines YouTube Channel, he was still working on the prototype of his weather forecasting machine. It’s such a great idea that we had to get it into the magazine, so here it is. The WeatherBot uses an ESP32 to take data from OpenWeatherMaps and display it as a constantly updating diorama, showing various weather conditions as an overlapping series of scenes that rotate to show wind, rain, snow, and other weather conditions. We’re sick of looking at computer screens, so it’s a nicely analogue way of getting information, but if you want more detail, Lewis has added an e-ink screen showing temperature, precipitation, and wind speed, so you’re not forced back to the computer if you want more information.…

By 2030, the World Health Organization estimates that two billion people will require access to at least one piece of assistive technology. While rapid advances have been made in the field over the past few decades, only one in ten disabled people currently have access to the assistive technology they need. Commercially available solutions tend to be expensive, so the role of open-source projects is crucial in bringing assistive technology to everyone around the world who needs it. Bionic and prosthetic limbs and hands are life-changing for amputees and people with limb differences. So the existence of an online community like e-NABLE, whose members develop low-cost, 3D-printable prosthetic hands, is vital. Wheelchair users benefit from a wide range of projects to help them enjoy greater mobility and accessibility, from the…

TALKING BARCODE READER hsmag.cc/TalkingBarcode People with visual impairment can find it difficult to read the labels on groceries in stores or in the cupboards at home. That was the case for Russell Grokett’s mother, so he decided to create a DIY talking barcode scanner to help her. When an item’s barcode is scanned, the device looks it up in an offline database and reads out its name. To make the device, Russell adapted an inexpensive standard laser barcode scanner by adding a Raspberry Pi Zero W. It uses the Flite text-to-speech tool to speak the item’s name through a tiny speaker. BACKMAP hsmag.cc/BackMap Hackathons are great for coming up with new technology ideas and solutions, and that was the case with Disrupt NY 2017, where a team including Shashank Sharma…

Jo Hinchliffe @concreted0g Jo Hinchliffe is a constant tinkerer and is passionate about all things DIY. He loves designing and scratchbuilding both model and high-power rockets, and releases the designs and components as opensource. He also has a shed full of lathes and milling machines and CNC kit! Last month we looked at the Sheet Metal workbench, and there’s no denying that, while you could design sheet metal objects without using that workbench, it makes a sheet metal design much quicker to generate and work with. This month we are looking at the ’Dodo’ workbench, which treats working with framed objects and designs or pipework in a similar fashion. To begin, open FreeCAD and click the Tools > Addon manager, then select Dodo on the list. Click install. When installed,…

Dr Andrew Lewis Dr Andrew Lewis is a specialist fabricator and maker, and is the owner of the Andrew Lewis Workshop. If you own a K40-style laser cutter, then you probably know that it’s a machine with several quirks and limitations. In this series, you’ll see how to build a more capable relative of the K40 from scratch. In this instalment, you’ll look at the general anatomy of a laser cutter, with a specific focus on the outer case. Laser cutters are not very complicated machines, but they rely on technologies that can be very dangerous if they’re used incorrectly. Because they have the potential to cause such harm, the idea of building one from scratch can (quite rightly) be intimidating. For that reason, many people start off with a…

BRADÁN LANE STUDIO $40 tindie.com Not a conference badge per se, but it has a lot in common with hackable conference badges, so I thought I’d include it in this roundup. I think there are a lot of interesting features that might inspire your next conference badge build. The eChallengeCoin Redux by Bradán Lane STUDIO is an electronic puzzle, similar to some conference badges I’ve come across online. To learn how to use it or, in this case, how to solve the embedded puzzles, you connect to it via UART. Now you can read the story and explore the various challenges and how to solve them. The creator hasn’t released the full code, as they feel it would ruin the challenge, but they have made some parts available under the…

SPARKFUN from $17.95 sparkfun.com @ben_everard You’ve probably guessed from the photos and the title what the headline feature of this board is. It’s small. Very small. Actually, it would probably be more accurate to describe it as narrow. There are plenty of boards that are this short (the smôl is 40.6mm long) or shorter, but we’ve not come across another development board that comes in under 11mm wide. However, it would be a bit of a mistake to consider this a one-trick pony. At the moment, there’s only one processor board in the smôl ecosystem – the ESP32. This does use quite a bit of power when running, but it has an efficient deep sleep which lets you get down to about 0.5mA. The current draw is critical because, if…